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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
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46 Responses to “General Debate 5 December 2012”

“Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler has rejected claims by the Greens that he is biased in favour of the banks he has to regulate.

Greens co-leader Russel Norman has accused Wheeler of misleading Parliament, when he told the finance and expenditure select committee last month that when New Zealand banks’ return on assets were compared with most OECD countries, “we are in fact about average or below”.”

NZ Cricket is vying with the Labour party to be the least competent organisation in the country.

Taylor may not be the most astute captain around but he has only been in the job 5 minutes. And, he has shown that when the heat is on he will knuckle down and graft it out. The contender, on the other hand, has yet to prove himself to be a test batsman and more often than not lets his ego take over from his ability and tries to blast his way out of trouble. It’s a no -brainer, as I see it.

The show pony is just that – and they dont make great captains. Taylor sounds like he isnt in the in crowd, which as a coach should be dealt with really quickly – not through dumping for someone you are mates with preferably.

@Nookin: I think you’re right. The strong rumours are the team is not a happy one with one faction supporting Taylor and another – including Coach Hesson, Dan Vettori and even Steven Fleming (McCallum’s manager) calling for change. Others simply want to play their best cricket and leave the bullshit aside.

The biggest disappointment for me is the ‘management’ team of the over hyped Australians – especially Buchanan. Dissent of this magnitude would never be allowed to publicly fester in an Australian team so why the hell are they allowing it here?

The team (term used loosely) really needs a collective kick up the arse. I see that David White has just returned from the ICC meeting in Dubai – perhaps the first item on his agenda should be to do just that?

Greens co-leader Russel Norman has accused Wheeler of misleading Parliament, when he told the finance and expenditure select committee last month that when New Zealand banks’ return on assets were compared with most OECD countries, “we are in fact about average or below.”

It’d be good if Wheeler had compared us only to Iceland, rather than to the entire list. I mean most of them are hardly sterling examples of best practice, are they.

@ Nookin and others – agree wholeheartedly; Fleming did not become a very good captain overnight; it’s a job you grow into.

But maybe the solution is to make McCullum captain of the ODI and T20 sides, and let Taylor develop as test captain. And Vettori’s unavailability for South Africa is a blessing in disguise; many of the current problems are as a result of the level of control he was given by Justin Vaughan.

A Sheep No More
The United Nations just announced the evacuation of its staff from Syria yesterday; now, Russia is making contingency plans to evacuate Russian nationals. Turkey will have NATO Patriot missile batteries in place by next week.

None of these moves looks well for a peaceful resolution in Syria. It appears that things are going to get a whole lot worse for the Syrian people and government. War is Peace!

Agree entirely about Vettori. The house of cards started to collapse when Vaughan said that the new coach would have to be someone who got on with Vettori. We haven’t missed him. Better still, we have found a wrist spinner who can actually spin the ball.

It is worth noting the parallels between what is happening in Egypt and what is going on in New Zealand – over constitutional change.

In Egypt, President Morsi is attempting to force through a draft constitution that would impose a new Islamic vision on the country.[1]

In New Zealand, using a low-profile government constitutional review, the Maori Party is attempting to force through a new bicultural constitution that would impose the vision of the Maori sovereignty movement onto the country.

In Egypt, the draft constitution states that the Islamic institution Al-Azhar must be consulted on any matters related to Sharia law, a move that critics fear will give clerics oversight of legislation.

In New Zealand, a new bicultural constitution would require an institution like the Waitangi Tribunal to be consulted on all new laws to ensure they complied with the Treaty of Waitangi, a move that would give the Waitangi Tribunal oversight of all legislation.

Today’s light relief from weightier matters like hypothetical future cabinets is this show from RT where I thought I had struck a reincarnation of ‘Comical Ali’ (remember him?) with the added spice that the guy could easily play a member of the Don Corleone clan:

The Government’s $2.87 billion operating deficit before gains and losses in the four months to 31 October was slightly larger than forecast, after core Crown revenue and expenses both came in below expectations.

“The latest figures confirm that the Government is continuing to control its new spending and getting better results from existing programmes, as we move towards our target of returning to surplus in 2014/15,” Finance Minister Bill English says.

“Core Crown tax revenue was a bit below Budget 2012 forecasts, as it was in the three months to September. This reflected slightly weaker than forecast consumption and wage growth feeding into GST and PAYE revenue.

“On the other side of the ledger, core Crown spending was $343 million below forecasts, reflecting slightly lower than expected spending in health, welfare, education and lower finance costs as a result of lower-than-forecast interest rates.”

The $2.87 billion OBEGAL deficit for the four months was $169 million larger than Budget 2012 forecasts. Net core Crown debt at $55.47 billion, or 27.1 per cent of GDP, was as forecast in the Budget.

Mary Wilson just trashed Jacinda as she tried to sell her: Bennett let workers fly to Australia meme, which some insider obviously passed to Jacinda, by Mary pointing out it was also happening under Liarbore. Fuck it was funny. Jacinda tried to step round it about three times but Mary wouldn’t let her escape.

Owner Michael Quinlan and general manager Peter Bennett were found guilty of 17 representative charges of supplying equipment or material capable of being used for the cultivation of cannabis at their stores throughout the country.

Whatever Susan Couch gets awarded to settle her claim is far too little and far too late. The poor woman has been battling since 2003 to hold the Corrections Dept accountable for appalling lapses which allowed Bell to kill three people and damn near kill her. Without Sensible Sentencing behind her she would never have got this far.

The settlement now is only because Corrections have at last run out of delaying tactics, and they are terrified what would have come out at trial. In the meantime, Crown Law will have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of time on the file – money that could and should have gone to Sue years ago.

Congratulations to Brian Henry for doggedly keeping at them for all these years.

And don’t forget there are others out there just as deserving. All strenght to their arm.

Corrections are every bit as bad as the people they suppossedly supervise. Its called Stockholm Syndrome. I.e. You become like the 10 people you spend the most of your time with.

Just had a run in with bastards myself. Thick as pig shit and consider that they are corrections and are apparently answerable to no one, especially the community that they are supposed to serve.

Collins wants something to do she could usefully spend many hours booting arse round that outfit. Smiths a slimy bastard so DG he will be trying to minimise corrections responsibility. Hope they screw him.
Susan deserves all she can get and more.

%This weeks Joke of the Year. Seriously.
The Aussie Labour Party aopologising for selecting one of their crroks for Govt.

Bwhahahahahah

NSW Labor’s Left faction has formally apologised for supporting Ian Macdonald into State Parliament as the Independent Commission Against Corruption continues to hear allegations of corrupt activity by the former minister.

The faction resolved on Tuesday night to issue an apology for supporting Mr Macdonald’s preselection, the same night the leading Left figure, Senator John Faulkner, gave a speech calling for reform within the NSW branch of the party.

“We believe in order for NSW Labor to change its culture, it has to acknowledge its mistakes,” the faction said in a statement.

Viking: No disrespect intended, but I doubt you know the half of what went on prior to the RSA murders vis a vis Bell….I have no idea of the contents of any settlement agreement, whether I might be bound by it by virtue of the Hobson case which started it all off..etc.etc….so I am going to keep my powder dry for now. I certainly wouldn’t want to say anything that would jeopardise getting the shaky hand of Smith on the Settlement Agreement.

But I will say this: if the public knew the level of incompetence and corruption in the Probation Service at that time they probably wouldn’t – and now won’t – believe it. THAT is why the mongrels are finally coming to the party now…otherwise it all comes tumbling out in open court. For weeks.

Some will say – and this will be the government’s line – “oh, that was ten years ago, things are all fixed now”. Cue Tui billboard in my view.